NEWS + HIGHLIGHTS INTERVIEW Investing towards a sustainable future Industry 4.0 and automation have been on-going trends that have become more attainable and accessible. The future of the electronics manufacturing industry lies on companies that are willing to invest in the progress of technology. In an interview with Kevin Youngs, the European Sales Manager of Omron Europe’s Automated Inspection Systems Division, he discusses trends and goals the company is striving towards, to reach their vision of the future for all industries, including industrial automation, electronic component, and more. Following their mission of being a pioneer in creating inspired solutions for the future, the company is not only focused on futuristic trends, such as flexible manufacturing, AI, and digital factory, but also to continue to cover all aspects of the production line, including smart vision inspection. INFO Integrated automation All Omron sensing and control products are designed with integration in mind. As each physical component is controlled by the Sysmac automation platform and is designed to be interoperable with any other Omron component, integration into any production environment is made simple. This platform provides a single software development environment to ease application development. Standard form factors and protocols also facilitate the upgrade and maintenance of the line. Intelligent automation The IIoT relies on the collection and organisation of large amounts of data from the factory floor to ensure that the line is always operating at maximum efficiency. The company’s intelligent machines incorporate sophisticated machine learning techniques, to make the correct decisions close to where they are needed on the line. The company’s controllers also feature an integrated SQL database to simplify communication between the factory floor and the IT layer to allow data and control commands to flow freely in both directions. Interactive automation The IIoT production environment needs both the cognitive skills and flexibility of humans and strength, accuracy and data capability of robots to work together to achieve manufacturing excellence. Creating a safe working environment is essential to allow both humans and robots to work together. A new generation of collaborative robots have been introduced that allow humans and robots to work in close proximity to each other. In an interview with Kevin Youngs, he discusses the company’s actions and investments towards the future of technology as well as their environmental targets. How much does Omron invest in research and development and how many people are employed in this area? Research and development expense is an important long-term investment for the Omron Group. We have set a standard for R&D expense at 7 % of sales, and we intend to raise this level to 7.5 % by fiscal 2020. Our target for investments in core technologies, including AI and robotics, is about 1 % of sales. Dedicating capital to the progress of technology represents up-front investments that will bear fruit for corporate growth 10 and 20 years down the line. This is the type of investment we must undertake as a manufacturing company, if we are to develop innovations that improve lives and contribute to a better society. Accordingly, we will continue to make bold investment decisions that challenge the frontiers of science, balancing discipline and risk to deliver to the world innovation. What is the significance of the innovative automation concept? Manufacturers face many challenges when moving towards an agile and flexible production environment. It is only when they are confident of meeting both the demands set by consumers and the markets that they can begin the journey to truly flexible manufacturing and the ultimate goal of the digital factory. Omron’s complete range of hardware and software products have been designed from the ground up to assist that process by providing the highest levels of integration, highly advanced intelligence capabilities and safe and easy interaction with the complex technology. Source: Omron Europe 10 EPP EUROPE November 2019
